Entries in environmental concerns
(5)

The February 23, 1968 Bridgeport Telegram ran this picture of the futuristic urban woman of the year 2000. Her futuristic body paint naturally deflects air pollutants and radioactivity! Happy Earth Day!

IS THIS WHAT LIES AHEAD? - A Los Angeles engineer thinks women living in an urban environment in 2000 will look like Vicki Dunlap, above. She wears body paint for insulation against the weather and air pollutants, including radioactivity. A computer necklace programs her day, governing the temperature of her oven, warning when her children will be home, and monitoring the guidance device of her car. Colored jewels are warning signals. Her hat is a receptor and transmitter for a two-way radio worn around the arms, with the earrings supplying energy for radio and computer. Think you can wait another 32 years?

The October 12, 1961 Evening Capital (Annapolis, Maryland) ran a story titled, "Disposable Clothes Seen Just Around The Corner." Excerpts appear below.

A research laboratory cuts its big laundry bill way down by sending dirty smocks, coveralls, etc., to the garbage pail. A housewife convinces her husband that her new party dress is a good bargain because she'll be able to wear it four times before throwing it away. Vacationers, ready to head home, stuff campsite trash and bedding into pillowcases and throw them into the campfire.

Disposable clothes are here - still being tested, but very much alive and kicking.

The article goes on to talk about the American public's issues with waste.

Part of the problem is one of salesmanship. Disposable clothes are still a novelty and command novelty prices. In addition, the American public is still hamstrung by the idea that waste is bad.

The man in this May 8, 1960 Closer Than We Think! strip is injecting color into trees from a walking robot paint-mixer. Much like polar oil wells, this image certainly has a different connotation in 2007 than it did in 1960.

Today's forests simply grow. Tomorrow, this process may be speeded and regulated - as to size, quality and even color, thanks to intensive research work now under way.

The U.S. Forest Service has already developed pine trees that mature twice as fast as today's ponderosa. Rayonier, Inc., is injecting radioactive carbon 14 into trunks to affect cellulose growth. Weyerhaeuser Co. has created new ways to avoid insect damage. And the U.S. Chamber of Commerce reports a treatment that will pre-color lumber while the trees are still growing; thus painting of wood may one day become a thing of the past.

Sometimes ideas of the paleo-future not only elicit a chuckle for their scientific improbability but, in the case of "Polar Oil Wells," political improbability. Baby penguins watching their habitat melting wouldn't be a very popular image today.

Valuable oil deposits thousands of feet under Arctic and Antarctic ice caps may one day be brought within reach, thanks to plans now being developed.

French Navy engineer Camille Rougeron has an idea for using giant thermonuclear pumps to draw up water from under the ice. Such water, which is 7 degrees above freezing temperature because of the pressure on it, would in turn begin to melt the ice.

Constant stirring would keep the warmer water coming to the surface. The ice in a designated area would gradually melt. The way would then be clear for conventional oil derricks to go to work.